


Tears Are Salty Yet Sweet

by Shoulderpads



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Crying, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 22:48:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16207262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoulderpads/pseuds/Shoulderpads
Summary: Roxas, Lea, and Xion finally get to be together in peace, but healing can hurt and be as salty as it is sweet.





	Tears Are Salty Yet Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is my first dive into writing kingdom hearts fic and I’m quite excited. This is part of a series that’ll focus on post canon healing for different characters. This one will focus on the sea salt trio, and this particular chapter focuses on Roxas.

He startled awake, gasping and heaving. He struggled and pulled at the sheets that clung to him like tendrils of shadows as his eyes darted around the darkness. 

Somewhere both nearby and impossibly far away, a loud bang rang out followed by a flash of light accompanied by cracking and snapping that came and went just as quickly and bathed the room in blackness again. 

“Roxas! What happened?! Are you ok?” A frantic voice called. 

Roxas blinked. Right. Roxas. That was him, wasn’t it?

“Are you alright?” A softer voice flicked on the lights. 

Roxas winced at the sudden brightness and screwed his eyes tight. 

“You’re ok, you’re safe,” the softer voice again. 

Roxas looked down at his fingers. They felt foreign, “I...I was...” he looked to the doorway where his friends stood, Xion with her short hair sticking in all manner of angles, a tired calm in her eyes, and Ax-Lea’s with eyes burning into him with worry, chakrams hanging from fingers where his arms dangled uselessly, “I-I wasn’t-“

“You’re you.”

The tension bled from his shoulders at her words, and he melted into his hands, trembling and taking in deep breaths.

That popping and snapping sounded again, and then Lea’s hands were on his shoulders, “C’mon, up you get,” he pulled Roxas off the bed and dragged the stumbling boy to the adjoined bathroom. He turned on the lights and shoved Roxas in front of the mirror lightly. 

“Look at you, handsome man, with hair way cooler than Sora’s,” Lea crossed his arms and grinned, “Could work on the bedhead though.”

Xion giggled behind them and Roxas smiled half heartedly. It might not‘ve been Sora’s face staring back at him, but it still wasn’t _his_ face. He didn’t own anything. He let his smile fall. 

“Ah, there’s Mr. Pouty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so pouty,” Lea continued, “I’ve been keeping a running list of who is the poutiest. I think I’ve settled on you being at the top and Ventus being at the bottom. He couldn’t even come close to _your_ pout.”

Roxas rolled his eyes, doubting the existence of such a list, but his smile felt a bit more genuine at the way Lea seemed to read his mind. 

“How’s about some breakfast, Number One Eye Roller and Softest Hair?” Lea looked between Roxas and Xion. 

Roxas glanced at the clock. 4:30 AM. 

“Isn’t it a bit early?” 

“It’s never too early for pancakes,” Lea quirked an eyebrow at Roxas, “Were you planning on going back to sleep?”

“...no.”

“And then we can watch the sun rise!” Xion clasped her hands by her face, “We don’t do that very often.”

“How exciting, we can watch the same thing we watch everyday but in reverse,” Roxas muttered, following his friends to the kitchen. 

Xion sat across from him at the tiny wooden table and danced a fork across that awful plaid cloth the old lady from the candy shop insisted they have. At least Lea liked it, plaid loving heathen. 

Lea cracked an egg into a bowl of other ingredients and began to stir. 

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Roxas called across the room. Usually they ate out, made frozen dinners, or just mooched off the kindness of Sora’s mom. 

“Only simple stuff really, and I’m very rusty, so no judging, but pancakes have always been my specialty,” he answered from the stove. 

“Can you make fun little shapes like at that one cafe?” Xion asked, eyes hopeful. 

“You’re pushing it now, I never said I was an artist, but I’ll try.”

“Ok!” She grinned and went back to playing with the fork, “What do you want to do today, Roxas?”

He shrugged, “There’s a new skateboard at the shop I like, maybe I can try to collect some munny, unless you had something in mind.”

She shrugged as well, “I don’t really have any ideas, so maybe we could try and get you that skateboard together!”

He shrugged, “If you want.”

“Work is always more fun when you’re with a friend. Then it’s more like hanging out than chores,” she answered simply. 

Before Roxas could tease her about getting ideas from fortune cookies, Lea came back and set down four plates, one full of regular circles, and the others with one shaped pancake each. He’d managed to make one look the king easily enough with three blobs of batter, but the rest were just lumps. 

“What’re these two supposed to be?” Roxas turned his own plate every which way. 

“Well one of them was supposed to be a star, and the other one a heart, but I can’t tell which ones which anymore. Like a said, not an artist.”

After drowning the king in syrup, Xion dug in, “These are pretty good, Axel! You should show off your cooking skills more often!”

“Yeah not bad for a guy who had to get the fire department here because didn’t know when to flip a grilled cheese,” Roxas jeered. 

“Hey, one time! And it was because I forgot butter on the pan!”

“No,” Xion cut in, “It’s because you got too impatient and took matters into your own hands,” she laughed. 

Roxas watched them squabble and laugh, and he thought maybe things would be ok. 

—

And more or less it was. 

The nightmares came every now and then where the happy little life he’d carved for himself would melt away and he’d be back in the depths of Sora’s heart as if reality had just been the dream. 

That thought haunted him both in his sleep and his waking world. 

He’d find himself staring off into space while his friends talked and laughed, fearing that it would disappear, be ripped from his hands, and not even have been real to begin with. It made him want to go back to bed if none of this mattered anyway, but then he might have another nightmare, perhaps this time about the weight of Xion in his arms slowly lightening. 

“Roxas c’mon we’re going to be late!” 

He blinked at the hands tugging his arm. 

“You promised to come shopping with us, I need your opinions,” Xion dragged him from the house. 

“O-oh, right,” Roxas found his footing, grabbed his skateboard and walked beside her on the cobblestone streets, “Though I’m not sure why you need my opinion.”

“Because you’re my friend, silly!”

“Axel’s you’re friend too.”

She rolled her eyes, “But he’s so unhip! You’re the coolest dressed guy I know!”

“You should get Kairi for this, she understands fashion.”

“I’m not going to drag Kairi all the way here so she can dress me up in clothes _she_ likes,” Xion blew a hair from her eyes. 

“I’m gonna end up dressing you in checkers then.”

Xion laughed, “I can live with that.”

Roxas set down the skateboard he and Xion had worked to get, the one with the red bottom and checkered top. Xion squished onto the board behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle, “Ok, let’s roll!”

Roxas nodded and they cruised to the train station, laughing and bantering about nothing in particular. 

—

“Oh hey! There you guys are!” 

“Hey Roxas, nice ride, picture worthy I think!”

Roxas rubbed the back of his neck, “I dunno, Pence, I’m not that photogenic.”

Pence held up the camera and Roxas did his best to not grimace while Xion smiled spectacularly before running over to give Olette a hug. 

“Where’s your tall friend?” Pence asked, stuffing the camera away. 

“Axel’s not a morning person,” Xion answered. 

“For the record,” Roxas held up his hands, “I’m not a morning person either, I’m just not a monster in the morning.”

“Didn’t he say his name was Lea?” Olette asked, leading the group inside the train station. 

“It’s complicated,” Xion and Roxas muttered at the same time. 

“Ok,” Olette shrugged and pulled her bag from her pocket to pay for the tickets she kindly offered to purchase. 

Roxas’s mouth twisted at the sight of the pouch he knew was hand stitched, a gift from Olette’s aunt who only gave presents in the form of sewn goods, but he didn’t say anything because Olette didn’t know he knew that. He couldn’t even really say if it was true. At least it wasn’t in his butter fingers. 

The train ride went off without a hitch. Xion spoke excitedly about getting to babysit the candy shop lady’s cat while she went out of town (Xion neglected to include the week of hell the cat had caused when not being cute) while Roxas zoned out. He leaned his head against the train’s wall despite its shaking and tasted words on his tongue that he’d never said but had felt about shared sadness and bittersweet melancholy. 

Outside the world rushed past in a blur of colors, but the morning light that filtered through the windows and glinted off the metal walls made time feel slow, calm, and lazy. In the short time he, Lea, and Xion had come here, he’d come to relearn all the reasons to love Twilight Town. Pulling his feet up on the seat cushion, he almost thought he could spare five minutes of sleep that he desperately needed, but then Xion’s hand was on his shoulder and his ears hadn’t caught up to his eyes, but he could read her lips and see the open doors enough to know they’d arrived at Sunset Terrace where that new mall had opened up. 

He stretched and caught something about really not being a morning person from Olette and ‘cuddling his skateboard’ from Pence.

He shambled behind the group that Xion excitedly led into the mall. He he didn’t know where she got the morning person quirk from. Sora certainly wasn’t a one. Maybe Kairi liked waking up at ungodly hours. 

The mall had two stories and skylights that casted sun beam down onto the benches and planets that ran along the middle of the first floor. At the center of the building was a fountain they’d all decided to make a wish on by throwing some munny in per Pence’s suggestion. 

The stores had the latest fashions and gadgets, and Xion dragged everyone into almost each shop. Roxas didn’t really understand the appeal, but Xion had made a convincing argument for her excitement some days ago about how nice having possessions just to themselves would be nice. Maybe Roxas could get some new shoes then. 

It turned out, that weaving in and out of shops was a lot more fun than he’d expected. Olette had gotten him to snort once or twice by finding the ugliest thing she could in each store, and Pence had tried on an assortment of hats from jungle explorer to church lady. They’d even spent the munny needed to cram into the kiddie rides shaped like rockets or hot rods. Perhaps the best thing, however, was simply walking around and talking or joking. That, and Xion’s upmost enthusiasm. It was nice to see her smile like that. 

She swished around in front of a mirror outside her dressing room so her friends could see from their place sitting against the wall. She seemed to have an affinity for flat, rounded off collars and for sleeveless dresses and she’d just found a couple colors of those styles combined. 

“What do you guys think?” She curtsied. 

“Great!” Pence gave a thumbs up. 

“Yeah, very you,” Olette agreed. 

Roxas just smiled and nodded. 

“Awesome, I’m gonna try on the other colors to make sure those look good too,” she receded back into the stall with a click. 

“We’ve been her really long,” Pence commented when he checked his watch, “If it wasn’t so fun, I’d say we were wasting the day away.”

Roxas blew a raspberry, “Like you’d have any better way to waste the day. Probably just take pictures of dust bunnies.”

“Hey,” Pence put a hand to his chest, feigning offense, “You don’t know that! Maybe I’d do my work.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Olette rolled her eyes, “What about you, Roxas? Did you finish that summer homework?”

Roxas’s head turned to face her slowly, “The...what...?” His voice trailed off, pitching up. 

“See? Slacker, he totally forgot,” Pence said, sounding underwater. 

That was weird. It didn’t feel wet in here. Maybe a bit cramped and stuffy? Was it like that a minute ago?

“Maybe he and Xion didn’t get assigned one, since they only just moved here,” Olette suggested from far away. 

No, it was definitely cramped in here. Stuffy too. How didn’t he notice the air almost too thick to breathe?

“Well maybe we should’ve checked sooner, I don’t want them to get an F, summer vacation is almost over!” 

It was, wasn’t it? Fuck, fuck, fuck, how couldn’t he have notice? When he startled at the stray cats in the corner of his eyes, or stared down the fruit stall he swore just shuddered, everyone told him it was tricks of the eye, but they’d want him to think that, wouldn’t they? Want him to think it was his mind, not the poorly hidden glitches. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t an idiot. 

He’d trusted it. He was an idiot. 

And now none of it was real, and summer was almost over, and he’d spent it dawdling around doing nothing, wasting time. He let himself be happy and trust these people and was an idiot, an utter buffoon, letting himself get duped like that. Shit, dammit! 

He was right, it wasn’t real. 

_It wasn’t real._

—

The chatter outside died down suddenly which Xion considered odd. The silence seemed like it had been cut short rather than a natural trickle. She worried her lip as she fiddled faster with the zipper on the back of her dress. It was probably nothing, but still she struggled to dress herself as quickly as possible, wishing she had more experience with back fastenings. 

She left the button at the top undone as she poked her head out of the stall and sucked in a breath at the sight. 

Pence and Olette had leaned close together, whispering and glancing at Roxas with concern and for good reason. The boy’s muscles were wound tight, arms stiff as a board except for the way they shook along with the rest of his body. His fingers twitched anxiously and Xion thanked whatever higher power there might be that he hadn’t summoned his keyblade. That would’ve truly startled their friends. His chest stuttered with struggling heaves, and his eyes stared off into nothing, glazed over with whatever he was currently seeing. 

“What did you say to him?” Xion hissed, rushing over to the group. 

“Nothing!” Olette put her hands up in defense. 

“We just wanted to know if he got that independent study done,” Pence insisted. 

Xion’s nose wrinkled up, “Independent study?”

“Yeah, the summer homework,” Olette clarified. 

“We’ve been pushing it off all of vacation and now school starts in less than a week,” Pence continued. 

Xion’s fingers went cold. Roxas hadn’t said much about his time in the other Twilight Town, but he’d spoken about how DiZ had seemed to be metaphorical with the end of summer being tied to the end of Roxas being apart from Sora. 

“Oh...uh,” she said eloquently, keeping the string of curses passing through her mind from leaving her mouth. Stupid Twilight Town teachers and their stupid annual summer assignment. 

She skittered over to Roxas, and dragged him up by the elbow. Honestly it wasn’t a smart move, but luckily he’d become a doll stuffed with jello in her grasp rather than springing on her. She so didn’t want to fight Roxas in the middle of the mall. 

“We’re um...homeschooled,” she called over her shoulder as she pulled Roxas away. If she didn’t need both her to keep him from face planting, she’d smacked herself for leaving them on that. 

It didn’t take long to reach the bathrooms, and she shoved Roxas into the men’s, figuring she could possibly pass for a boy with her haircut and that it would be better to find a girl in the men’s room rather than the reverse. 

“Talk to me, Roxas,” she said, propping him against a sink.

“‘S not real,” he mumbled. 

“Uh-uh,” she shook her head, “That’s not true. This is absolutely real.”

“That’s what he’d want you to say...”

“DiZ wouldn’t want me to say anything, we haven’t heard word from him in who knows how long and when he made the simulation, he didn’t know who I was,” she rubbed up and down his arms, trying to relax his muscles. 

“Please don touch me...”

She sprung her hands back so fast, her elbow cracked. 

“Just take me to DiZ...get this over with.”

Xion dragged a hand down her face, unsure what to do. Roxas sounded so _defeated_. It hurt her to see him like this. Despite his resignation, he still shook like a leaf. He was scared, but couldn’t stand the idea of being in a lie either. 

“Please, Roxas, believe me. We’re our own people now. Sora’s on Destiny Islands right now falling off a zip line or something, not asleep in a pod. We all worked together to defeat Xehanort, remember?”

He blinked at her, eyes clearing up a bit, “Y-yeah,” he whispered. 

She smiled for half a second before the quiet fog over Roxas broke with a shaky breath and the appearance of tears on the edge of his eyes, “You promise it’s real?” His voice was soft, almost as if the illusion would shatter if it rose. 

“Yes, yes I promise. You me and Axel are Somebodies and we’re all together, and even Namine is her own person now, and if I made Riku come here, he wouldn’t fight you, he’d probably mess up your hair and call you dumb.”

He wrapped his arms around his chest and slid down the wall, “I don’t want to go back to Sora,” he sobbed. 

“You won’t, promise.”

He nodded with a sniffle. 

Xion glanced at the way her friend stared into space before turning away and digging her phone out of the shorts she’d kept on under the dress. She hit eight on speed dial. 

“ _Huu...huh? Xion, you ok?_ ” Lea’s voice filtered through the phone after a few rings, his voice groggy with sleep. Under normal circumstances, she’d tease him for still being in bed, but these weren’t normal circumstances. 

“Um, I’m fine, but Roxas is uh...kinda freaking out, and I need you here,” she spun a lock of hair between two fingers. 

“ _What happened?_ ” He sounded much more awake now and a shuffling came from the background. 

“The other kids mentioned something about a...” she looked back at Roxas for a moment before covering her mouth and whispering into the receiver, “summer assignment.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” Lea huffed. 

“Yeah, I took him to the boys bathroom, but I don’t know how long we can hide out here without someone coming in, and I don’t know how long we can leave Pence and Olette before they start searching. And I’m in clothes I haven’t paid for yet, so I can’t just walk out with Roxas, but I can’t leave him to go change...”

“ _Yeah, I understand, I’ll be there in a second, don’t worry._ ”

“Don’t dark corridor here,” Xion shook her head, “I don’t want your sudden appearance here to seem too fast and suspicious.”

“ _You want me to walk all the way to the train, ride it, and walk to the mall?_ ” Lea scoffed. 

“...Yes.”

“ _Hmmm no. That’s too long. I’m dark corridoring there._ ”

“But-“

“ _If anyone asks, I was running errands in the area. I’ll be there in like five minutes._ ”

Xion sighed, “Fine,” and gave him more details on their location and how to get there from the nearby alleyway. 

She offered her hand to Roxas while they waited, and he took it tentatively. She knew something had been bothering him on and off for perhaps months, but she’d figured it had just been memories haunting his dreams, and that he’d talk about them on his own terms. She hadn’t considered that he’d question reality like this. It made sense in hindsight, but it still made her want to crush that bastard’s head in. He’d hated them for what they were, and he’d decided to be cruel to Roxas instead of just imprison him while waiting for Sora. And now that jerk was still hurting her friend. Maybe they should’ve gone to live at Radiant Garden instead, or stayed on the islands. 

“Ok I’m here,” Lea tossed open the bathroom door and panted through his words. He took in Roxas’s appearance and cursed under his breath as he rushed over. 

“Axel?” Roxas mumbled lamely. 

Lea nodded, “Yeah, that’s me, buddy. How you feeling?”

“Pathetic.”

“Well I can assure you, you aren’t, but how bout we talk about that somewhere nicer than this bathroom, huh?” He held a hand out. 

Roxas took it and allowed himself to be pulled up and for Lea to secure an arm around his shoulders, “Lets go tell your pals a lie and get outta here.”

Xion led the pair to where Pence and Olette still waited awkwardly in the dressing room. She quickly changed while Lea explained that Roxas had been fighting off a nasty cold and that today it had finally gotten the better of him. It wasn’t the best excuse, but with the way Roxas presses his face into Lea’s chest and shivered, he did look rather sick. Xion apologized profusely as she rushed away to pay for her things and left with Lea and Roxas. 

She should’ve known Lea didn’t mean home when he said somewhere nicer than the bathroom, but she’d been preoccupied at the time, so the friendly wave from the owner of the ice cream cart came as a much needed surprise. Before she knew it, they were sitting in their spot, watching the town go by. 

When the half of his ice cream that Roxas didn’t eat melted away, Lea nudged him. 

“You wanna talk about it?”

Roxas looked down at his dangling feet for a bit before answering quietly, “Im weak for letting this all get to me.”

Xion gasped. She regarded Roxas as one of the strongest people she knew, “You’re not-!”

Lea held up a hand from the other side of Roxas in order to silence her. _Let him speak._

“It’s in the past, why can’t it stay there? And...and what kind of idiot thinks he’s in a simulation? Twice! Who would pull a trick like that a second time? I’m weak because I can’t even trust the people around me enough to think they’re real. And I hate it. I’ve always been scared that all of this might disappear and that my happiness might be yanked away again, but I thought I’d come to an accepting state on that, that if it happened, I wouldn’t be surprised, and I’d survive, I’d fight. But then...today, I thought it was really going to happen and I...I was scared. Anything I thought about being prepared disappeared and I became a panicking nimrod! How pathetic! I can’t even get a full night’s rest, I’m that weak!”

When he finished, he had two halves of a stick in his shaking hands and tears falling down his cheeks to the plaza below. He scrubbed a fist over his eyes angrily. 

“Roxas, you know none of that’s true right? The part about being weak?” Lea started. 

Roxas shrugged violently. 

“Hey, man, look at me, will ya?”

Roxas grit his teeth and glared up at Lea with red eyes. 

Lea nodded, “That’s more like it. Listen Roxas, you aren’t going to believe me right now, but you are very strong. You’ve had to be strong your whole life. You’ve never been allowed to be weak and innocent like a child,” he rubbed the back of his head, “which is regrettable, but can’t be helped. You’ve endured so much to get to where you are now, it only makes sense that it’s left some scars on you. You’ve finally found peace, it’s understandable that you’d be scared of it disappearing. That doesn’t cancel out the strong things you did before.”

Roxas cried harder now, his shaking jerkier, and his mouth quivering with effort to stay silent. 

“And you don’t have to be strong either. You’ve earned the right to be soft. It’s ok to just be healing, right now.”

“I feel more like I’m hurting,” Roxas’s ragged voice struggled past his tight throat. 

Lea’s eyes reflected sympathy, “Sometimes healing hurts before it gets better, but it’ll be worth it. Plus you’re not doing it alone. You’ve got me and Xion, and all our other friends here with you the whole time.”

“Yeah!” Xion stroked her friend’s shoulder, “You’re important to us, and we want you to feel better and happy.”

Roxas hunched over and sobbed forcefully into one hand. His eyes betrayed such fear and pain, but at the same time, light glimmered there, “Thank you guys,” he choked out between hiccups, “Thank you s-so much.” 

They hugged then, tight and unyielding, assuring each other of their existences. They sat there together until the sun dipped below the horizon, until Roxas’s eyes dried and his breath evened out.

“When’d you get so smart and wise anyway?” He laughed tiredly. 

Lea snorted, “Must be Yen Sid residue.”

“Ew,” Xion giggled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I’d like to note that the kind of collar style Xion has taken a liking to here is called “peter pan collar” but I can’t just like...call it that dhfhhffgk. 
> 
> Anyway! Come chat with me at shoulderpads-mcgee2 on tumblr!


End file.
